COVID Milestones Passed in New York and Broome

 Some significant COVID-19 numbers are being passed as cases again start to rise, this time due to a subvariant of the Omicron mutation.

Over the past few days, New York State passed the five million mark for the number of people infected since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

The state has been seeing daily new infection rates go from under two-thousand several days in February to over 5,000 Friday, April 8. April 11, New York reported 4,060 new cases.  The positivity rate has jumped from under 3% at the end of March to 4.40% April 11.

Broome County also recently passed a milestone, recording over 52,000 cases in its report on Friday, April 8.  Broome County April 11 reported one new death from COVID-19, bringing the pandemic total to 504.

In Pennsylvania, there were just over 6,000 new cases for the week and 109 deaths.  In the Northern Tier, Bradford County recorded 86 new cases but no additional deaths, maintaining a pandemic death toll of 200. Susquehanna County had 86 new cases for the week and one additional death, bringing the toll to 108 and Wayne County recorded 31 new cases for the week and no new deaths, keeping its death toll to 169 for a third week.

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New COVID case numbers do not necessarily reflect positive home tests since many may go unreported to county and state agencies.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports Philadelphia has become the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate after reporting a sharp increase in coronavirus infections.

Officials say infections linked to the BA2 subvariant in the city have gone up more than 50% in 10 days, which is Philadelphia's threshold for mandating masks indoors.

City officials say they want to hold off a potential new wave driven by the omicron subvariant.  .

Health inspectors will start enforcing the mask mandate at city businesses starting April 18.

Most states and cities dropped their masking requirements in February and early March.